Traffic Woes and Car Pooling
Wheel is regard as one of the most significant inventions of mankind. From thereon, cycles, carts, cars, buses, planes, all are human inventions designed to improve the living standards of mankind. Man used car to transport himself, his family and his belongings from one place to another. Over the years, the motor car became the most important and sought after creation of mankind. It started off as a luxury item and ended up being a necessity. No person in today’s world can even imagine living his life without a car. However, lately some of these marvelous inventions of the mankind have been used in such a way that they have become a hassle rather than a providing the comfort, they were meant to. Traffic jams have become an everyday problem nowadays. There are traffic jams leading up to hours, while people who are returning home after a long day can do nothing except cursing other drivers. According to the 2006 World Bank, there are 7,000,000 vehicles on the roads in Pakistan. This not only poses a problem for the commuters, but also has hazardous effects on the climate. Moreover, the ongoing construction work on the roads also causes traffic problems.
On the one hand, the number of cars on the roads have increased tremendously, while on the other hand, drivers display no knowledge or respect for traffic rules and regulations. The worst traffic hours are when children get off from schools and offices have lunch breaks. If you have been on the road from one to three p.m., you know what that means. There is almost one car per child that goes to school, hence causing the gigantic traffic jams. It is almost next to impossible to find a parking space anywhere near the school, and there are rows of cars parked up to the end of streets. It is a sad truth that we live in a very status conscious society, where the worth of a person is judged from the size of his house and more often from the make and model of the car that he or she drives. Hence, the trend of riding in school buses and vans is becoming obsolete. Moreover, one cannot deny the fact that school vans are very unreliable and undependable. So, most of the parent have no other option than to pick and drop children themselves.
